As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve recently received a piece of spam from the Dean Campaign. A number of people have written me asking if I contacted the Dean campaign. Yes, I have and I hope to get an answer. Based on further investigation, though, it looks like this could be a case of an over-eager volunteer. The reason I am going with that assumption for now is that, while researching the subject, I’ve learned of another case happening earlier this year. Based on the official apology on that prior incident, I suspect that this may be a similar case. A subsequent discussion brings up the interesting point of volunteers online and the difficulty in managing them. This might be an interesting point to investigate further as more of the campaigns are going to try to engage people directly via the online medium during this presidential campaign. A good starting point on this is to get your volunteers more familiar with Netiquette. While a bit dated, Netiquette by Virginia Shea provides you with a good grounding in the basics of online communication. Here are some basic things to watch out for: When sending a message, first check that the person you…